March 25, 2010

Chai-Town Jake

The latest in performance-enhancing drugs sits in Jake Peavy’s locker. It comes in individual packets. He ingests it when he feels a lull. It could very easily be called the new greenie.And he takes his with a dollop of honey, thank you.

“Green chai tea,” Peavy said. “It’s not an Alabama thing.”

If Peavy’s friends back in his hometown of Mobile knew a tall, smiling, half-full, plastic honey bear stood in the locker of the former National League Cy Young winner, they would never relent. He’d be known as Winnie the Peav, or Jake Teavy, or Chai-Town Jake, or something else that highlights the incongruence of a good Southern boy partaking in such a bourgeois Yankee drink.

“The cool nights in Chicago, I’ll sit on a bench and sip a chai tea,” Peavy said. “It’s good for you. It actually gives you some energy. Chai tea speeds up your metabolism.” …